The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for dynamic ad hoc cloud based memory management for mobile devices.
Modern mobile devices, e.g., mobile telephones, smart phones, tablet computing devices, and the like, often include recording equipment for recording video, audio, or a combination of video and audio content, as well as other types of multi-media recordings. Typically, the recording equipment may include one or more of a video camera, a microphone, inputs for connecting additional recording equipment, lighting equipment, or the like, to assist with the generation of such recordings. The recordings themselves are often stored as one or more data files in a memory or storage device of the mobile device.
The memories of such mobile devices are limited with regard to storage capacity and/or storage capacity dedicated to the storage of recordings generated by the recording equipment. As a result, it is often the case that such mobile devices may, during a recording operation, approach or exceed the storage capacity of the memory of that particular mobile device, i.e. the mobile device runs out of memory for storing the recording while the recording is being performed. For example, a user of a mobile phone may utilize the mobile phone's recording equipment (video camera, microphone, and corresponding software executing on the mobile device), to record a performance or other event. While recording the performance or event, the memory of the mobile device may become full and thus, the user is not able to record the entirety of the performance or event that the user wishes to record. As a result, recording content is missed or lost due to the inability to store the recording content in within the available capacity of the memory of the mobile device.
One solution is to increase the memory of the mobile device. However, even though memory devices themselves are becoming increasingly less costly to provide, and newer mobile devices are often equipped with larger memories, the need for still greater amounts of memory is ever increasing, especially with the advent of high definition video, three dimensional video recordings, and the like, which generate larger size files for storage.
Moreover, individuals often under estimate the memory requirements of their mobile devices while recording a performance or event, or are not cognizant of the remaining storage in their mobile device. In such cases, for example, a user may record an event at the highest definition settings available to the device when, if they had known of the memory limitations, a lower definition setting may stretch the recording capability of the mobile device for some time longer. Thus, again, individuals often face a situation while recording a performance that they are running out of memory in their mobile device and may miss valuable moments of a performance or event while changing out their storage device, e.g., SD card or other storage device, if they are even able to switch out storage devices.